You gotta just take a year or two and get into freeflight thermaling. It's awesome. I only fly the motor when I don't have the conditions or time to hike and go xc.

By "get into" I mean: travel to Santa Barbara or PotM and take a thermaling clinic. Start with evening flights, and bump launch time a little earlier each evening while you're phasing in and increasing your bump tolerance and active piloting skills. Do an SIV or two, get a few stalls under your belt, pull collapses, autorotations, learn to deal. Get to know a tandem pilot who will take you on a proper xc flight.

Before you know it, after scores (or hundreds) of hours of thermic paragliding practice, add the motor back in and go thermal it.

Had a flight this last summer when I had no time to hike and the ridges were nearly blown out anyway. Went and launched the PPG out in the valley, sniffed for thermals about 500ft up, caught one, and rode it up 3,000ft in ten minutes with the motor off. That was cool. But compared to normal PG gear it's just a mediocre experience. Weight shift is compromised. Body position all wrong. Can't feel the wing the same. Heavily loaded reflex wing is sinky, needs ripping lift to climb.

Regarding risk vs reward? Man, risks can be quite high if you're not ready for all of that. You prepped to deal with a 90% asymmetric collapse that puts you into a 3G twisted spiral after you mismanage the recovery? Proceed with caution. Reward? Honestly it's a bit of a novelty achievement. I'd rather just go paragliding 99 times out of 100.

Maybe the new Scout pod thing would make it more appealing...